o do."

In short, Virgil Hoyt's view of the world is whimsical, and he likes to
be bothered neither with the disagreeable nor the mysterious. That
is the reason he loathes and detests going to a house of mourning to
photograph a corpse. The bad taste of it offends him, but above all,
he doesn't like the necessity of shouldering, even for a few moments, a
part of the burden of sorrow which belongs to some one else. He dislikes
sorrow, and would willingly canoe five hundred miles up the cold
Canadian rivers to get rid of it. Nevertheless, as assistant
photographer, it is often his duty to do this very kind of thing.

Not long ago he was sent for by a rich Jewish family to photograph the
remains of the mother, who had just died. He was put out, but he was
only an assistant, and he went. He was taken to the front parlor, where
the dead woman lay in her coffin. It was evident to him that there was
some excitement in the household, and that a discussion was going on.
But Hoyt said to himself that it didn't concern him, and he therefore
paid no attention to it.

The daughter wanted the coffin turned on end in order that the corpse
might face the camera properly, but Hoyt said he could overcome the
recumbent attitude and make it appear that the face was taken in the
position it would naturally hold in life, and so they went out and left
him alone with the dead.

The face of the deceased was a strong and positive one, such as
may often be seen among Jewish matrons. Hoyt regarded it with some
admiration, thinking to himself that she was a woman who had known
what she wanted, and who, once having made up her mind, would prove
immovable. Such a character appealed to Hoyt. He reflected that he
might have married if only he could have found a woman with strength of
character sufficient to disagree with him. There was a strand of hair
out of place on the dead woman's brow, and he gently pushed it back.
A bud lifted its head too high from among the roses on her breast and
spoiled the contour of the chin, so he broke it off. He remembered these
things later with keen distinctness, and that his hand touched her chill
face two or three times in the making of his arrangements.

Then he took the impression, and left the house.

He was busy at the time with some railroad work, and several days passed
before he found opportunity to develop the plates. He took them from
the bath in which they had lain with a number of others, and went
e